All about : Olaf
=Olaf= Introduction Olaf the Snowman (simply known as Olaf) is the secondary tritagonist in Disney's 2013 animated feature film Frozen. He is voiced by Josh Gad. Voicing He is voiced by actor Josh Gad in the movie Frozen. Designing and Characterization Process As a snowman Anna and Elsa built together as kids, Olaf represents innocent love and the joy the sisters once had when they were young before being split. He isn't just funny, he's also got a "big role to play representing the innocent love in the scale of fear versus love."10 It wasn't until he meant something to the girls that he resonated with us," she said,11 "Olaf couldn't just be thrown in, he had to have a purpose" and that one of his purposes was to be the embodiment of the sisterly relationship that had gone cold.12 "When Anna and Elsa were very little, and before Elsa's powers accidentally hurt Anna, they played. They'd sneak away and play with her powers. And you see them roll the snowman. He's not magical. He doesn't come to life. But they name him Olaf and he likes warm hugs." "It inspires the look. And so when Elsa is singing “Let It Go” obviously the first thing she goes to is the last moment she was happy. And it was that moment. And so he’s imbued with that. He’s innocent love. Like I say, we keep saying, the real themes are sort of the power of love versus fear. And he represents the most innocent love. And he’s also got a lot of the young Anna’s characteristics, because I think to Elsa that’s who she really loved. And so he was just a lot of fun, and emotionally he’ll bring a lot that we weren’t able to show you yet, too. So he’s funny in the kids-state-the-obvious kind of way." (Lee) "And he can say very poignant things too." (Buck)2 In very early versions of the film, Olaf was originally written as one of the guards at Elsa's castle when the concept of Elsa controlling a legion of menacing snowmen was still in the story.1213 Buck talked on this scrapped character setting, "We always talked about she was trying to learn about her powers. So we talked about it like it's the first pancake. You know that pancakes get burned on the bottom that you throw out. Well, that's Olaf. Olaf was her first pancake."13 In order to keep the character from getting too complex, the directors wanted him to have a childlike innocence.12 According to Lee, "When you're a child the awkwardness and the funny shapes you make with the snowmen, the heads are never perfect" and that's how they came up with the ideas when thinking what kids would think of a snowman.1213 Gad also did plenty of improvements for Olaf during the recording sessions. But the directors were very careful not to risk the character taking over the story.12 "Olaf was very much a sketch until we had Josh Gad, and then we would just get in the room and play and we'd have a lot of fun and that's really how we found his voice specifically and how he looks at the world. It really was working with Josh that did that."14 "It was a lot funnier than I expected, thanks largely to Josh Gad's surprisingly well-written deluded snowman character" (Del Vecho).15 Gad's studio performance was videotaped, and animators used his facial expressions and physical moves as a reference for animating the character.11 Hyrum Osmond, one of the film's animation supervisor, served as the character lead for Olaf.15 Del Vecho described him as "quiet but he has a funny, wacky personality so we knew he'd bring a lot of comedy to it."15 Osmond himself admitted that "My personality's a bit like Olaf."11 The filmmakers developed a new software called Spaces to aid artists in deconstructing Olaf and rebuilding him as part of the animation process.1617 "It was kind of an animator's dream," Osmond enthused. "You have a character that can come apart. We said to the animation crew, 'Just have fun with it.'" "The fun part of Olaf, we learned early on that his body parts can fall apart and we knew that we would want to take full advantage of that. You will see quite a bit more of that in the movie in a surprising way." (Chris Buck).14 "Olaf has become his own sort of standout comic character and the animators are having fun animating him. There's a lot of squash in there – I mean, a lot – and he's the only character we can throw off a cliff and have him come apart on the way down, still survive and be happy." (Del Vecho)15 We have the contrast of Olaf being a Snowman but loving the idea of Summer.15 Appearance He appears in the song " in summer " where the idea of his , exploring summer and going in the sun. He helps Anna to look for Elsa and was a very funny character throughout the journey. Disney Parks Currently, Olaf is the host of the winter renditions of both World of Color in Disney California Adventure, as well as Disney Dreams! in Disneyland Paris, alongside Anna. Beginning in November, an animatronic Olaf began hosting Anna and Elsa's meet and greet in Disneyland, speaking to guests as they wait in line to meet the two princesses. Olaf also appears on Anna and Elsa's float in Disneyland Paris' Disney Magic on Parade. Olaf is also the host character of Olaf's Frozen Ice Rink in Disneyland's Downtown Disney. Olaf also makes an appearance being built by young Anna and Elsa in the Frozen segment of Celebrate the Magic at the Magic Kingdom. --- I just love Olaf ! I think Frozen has been a great success only because of him ( and all the other characters too , of course ) -Founder of this Wiki , Elsa Anderson Category:Elsa's imaginary friend Category:Snow Creations Category:Living snowmen